It's true. I kind of have a thing for snakes. Mind you, I would never actually own a snake. I just like the idea of them. Their danger. Their symbolism.
"McAuley, what are you on?" The answer would be vicodin.
A couple months ago my friends and I decided to go to a cigar bar in DC. The topic of tattoos came up. I shared that I was considering getting one. The girl next to me (who I didn't really know) gave a look of disgust. She came from the,"Why put a bumper sticker on a Bentley?" mentality which I respect (and used to be a part of). I used to swear I would NEVER get tatted up, thinking it would ruin my chances at ever becoming First Lady.
But over the past few years, my brother and Da started getting tattoos, as did a number of friends. And so I started warming up to the idea.
So, at the cigar bar, curious friends asked what I would get. Easy. A snake.
I have a personal connection with snakes. No, I'm not a
parseltongue . See, a few years ago, I went through something pretty difficult. It was scary. My Mom came to visit me after she found out I was a numbed-up version of myself who wasn't eating or sleeping.
I broke down the second she knocked on my door.
The way you can break down in your mother's arms.
They're somehow strong enough to hold the weight of any burden.
Let's just say I had recently learned that people could be snakes. Manipulative, preying, Eden-style serpents. My mom did what any good mother would do. She took me shopping. I found a snake ring and was instantly drawn to more than the sparkle it possessed. Then I had this revelation, or what Oprah would call, an "Aha" moment.
People are going to be snakes. There is a breed of humans who are cunning and twisted, and they are going to try to slither their way into the places and corners of your life in which they do not belong.
So you must fight back. You have to outsmart them. Don't you ever let someone have an obtrusive power over you. Don't let them gang up on you. Learn to play their game- learn it fast. Position yourself so that you've wrapped that snake around your little finger and you're able to drain the power from it at a moment's notice, in order to protect yourself.
Because you deserve to live your own life.
Not a life that others try to force upon you.
And, you don't have to stay paralyzed.
You deserve to be who YOU want to be, in YOUR life,
not who someone ELSE wants you to be, in HIS or HER life.
And because sometimes, ass-kicking is good.
When it's done with a righteous anger;
when it seeks to destroy a fear-infused fate.
This post took a different direction than I thought.
But yeah, sometimes I think about getting a snake tat.
